It's Bath Time

rubber-ducky

Do you remember this ad from when you were a kid.. 'I want my clothes off. I want my bath… and the water. I want my Mr Matey, please.' OMG it is still stuck in my head. It was a cartoon ad for Mr Matey bubble bath. Anyway..

A friend of mine told me this great story that I want to share. It's about Bath TIme which is why my brain just went into an 80s matrix for a moment.

My friend is a wonderful husband, father of three and all around top bloke. He told me that he was at home in the kitchen… cooking… which I highly doubt, because he has mega A.D.D and would not be able to concentrate on a receipt for long enough o actually amok anything. Regardless, he was in the kitchen and yelled out to his 5 year old son, Maverick, ‘It’s Bath Time!!!’ No response for said child.

Maverick was chilling in his room playing with Lego. So my friend left it alone for ten minutes, then decided to physically leave the kitchen (again why i doug he was cooking because you can't just shimmy out of the kitchen if your quinoa is about to dry out on the stove top can you?) and walk over to his son’s bedroom door, push it slightly ajar and for the second time he said, ‘Maverick, it’s BATH TIME!’ Maverick did not flinch, did not respond, did not turn around, did not put down his Lego, he just kept playing.

At this point my friend thought to himself, if he was in the kitchen (probably not cooking dinner for the family) and had opened a packed of biscuits, even if Maverick was outside in the back yard miles away, that kid would hear the rustling of paper from the distant kitchen, drop whatever he was doing and run inside at a rapid pace, skim around the corner with his little legs almost flying up over his head and without any hesitation say, ‘Dad, what’s that, what have you got, can I have one?’

Knowing what a different reaction he could inspire in his child depending on the desire, he went in for one final attempt before physically picking up his baby boy and marching him into the bathroom. He crept right up behind his son and said, ‘Maverick, it’s bath time’ Nothing. I am pretty sure the end of the story resulted in Mum calling out for Bath Time and Maverick being obedient, because when you are five, Mum is so much more scary than Dad!

Why is this story important?

It’s important because we all have a condition called ‘selective hearing’. It’s easy to block out hearing something we don’t want to hear. It’s a no brainer to play ignorant to avoid doing something we simply don’t want to do. And on the flip side, it’s just as easy to develop over sensitive hearing in order to attain something we desire. In life, selective hearing is something that I think as adults we need to reverse. Because at the end of the day, the universe can scream your answers at you and if you choose to ignore it, ultimately we are the ones that miss out, and in life there is not enough time in the day to miss out, on anything, ever.

Sometimes we don’t want to hear what the universe is telling us because it’s something we just don’t want to do, but what if that is the thing that unlocks the door that leads you to your breakthrough. Don’t get me wrong. Maverick is a kid and I am not saying that avoiding bath time is going to have an adverse effect on his performance as a person, what I am saying though, is that it is an interesting characteristic that is we develop early on. Maybe it's a part of our nature to avoid what we don't want, but the reality is, avoiding what we don't want can also mean missing out on what is best for us. And the universe knows better. Just like Dad does when you are five.

Do you hear me? Sharpen your hearing, and understand that in life, the universe isn’t going to tell you what you want to hear all the time, it’s going to tell you what you need to hear. Sometimes that answer to your prayer is not what you think it should be, but that is the beauty of trusting the process.

If you can open your ears to it all, you’ll start to realise that the answers are all there, we just have to hear them properly and then act. I believe that the universe only speaks to us because it has our best interest at heart and wants the best for us, exactly like a daddy does for his child.